BLAKE GEOFFRION’S FATHER – “We’re Lucky He’s Alive”

The words of Danny Geoffrion who, along with his wife, was part of the crowd of over 18-thousand at the Bell Centre Friday night when his son Blake was slammed into the boards with a clean but devastating hip check delivered by Syracuse defenceman Jean-Philippe Cote.

Blake Geoffrion – Hamilton Bulldogs

Geoffrion was able to leave the ice under his own power but within five minutes Danny joined his son in the ambulance on the way to Montreal General Hospital. While undergoing a CAT scan, Blake went into convulsions, a sign that a shard of skull bone had penetrated the brain when Cote’s skate boot came down on the bone two inches above his left ear. Doctors operated to relieve a diagnosed depressed skull fracture.

“They removed the piece of his skull that was about the size of a silver dollar. They had to replace that with titanium and metal mesh. And that’s what the plate consists of, with the screws and all that, so he now has that in his head. It was unreal.”

“Parts of the skull had gotten into the brain. So they cleaned all that out, and took care of the little bleeding he did have, which was another major thing. He was very, very lucky.”

The Canadiens have called his potential absence from the lineup as “indefinite”. All things considered, the earliest we might see him again is 2013 training camp.